


CURSED RUINS

by Jackieshalom02



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Neglect, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/M, Hydra (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Major Original Character(s), Mental Health Issues, Mutant Powers, Not Canon Compliant, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protectiveness, References to Depression, Slow Burn, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Torture, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:28:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29608062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackieshalom02/pseuds/Jackieshalom02
Summary: "I don't chase, I conquer. And you will crumble like Rome before me."Marvel Cinematic universeBucky Barnes x fem!ocSlow burn(Starts just after Captain America: The Winder-Soldier but slightly AU.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Life hadn't been exactly easy growing up for Eris** **Greene. Not that life was easy on anyone really, having to grow up in a world that was slowly dying, having to succumb to certain exceptions, having to lose your precious childhood imagination for things such as practicality, having to work and work and work until you became nothing but** _ **dust**_ **because mortality was such a fickle thing and the only certainty in life was** _ **death**_ **,** **So yes** **, life wasn't easy at all, for anyone.**

**But for Eris, Eris who had born ordinarily, which, really shouldn't of made a difference to her life as to most because being ordinary was a perfectly normal thing to be** **. H** **owever,** **her life, growing up and even beyond that** **had just been full of** **_pain_ ** **and** **_trauma_ ** **because i** **n her** **world** **, the word** **_ ordinary _ ** **was a curse, something to be ashamed about, because how dare she be nothing while her family were** **_ everything. _ **

**She had been born into the life of the Greene's, a couple of two dangerously smart individuals who's intelligence were each almost on par with the likes of Tony Stark, both of them not believing in the** **myth** **that was love, and instead seen their marriage as something of a way to pave themselves to have more power, and of that power, her elder sister Arabella, had been born into the world, kicking and screaming and** **_gifted._ **

**And** **her** **parents had been so delighted in the girl that could lift things up to ten times her size, that they'd decided to have another and that's** **where** **she'd come into the world, quiet and gentle and unassuming and they'd known, they'd just known that she'd be a devastating loss to the power they were so desperate to clutch** **between** **their liquid gold fingers.**

**Throughout her life, she'd being pushed aside and ignored, taught that love was a** **gift** **that would never be bestowed on to her, having to work for everything she had, to** **fight** **for** **affection and a scrap of attention from everyone and** **_anyone_ ** **while her sister was given it on a silver** _**platter** _ **, sent to the best schools, given the best clothes, given** **the best that life had to offer, and she'd take it all with greedy hands because that's what she'd been taught to do.**

**But Eris had to learn that the world was a cruel and treacherous place filled with fake smiles and twisted morals, that she shouldn't fear** **the** **made up monsters that every child her age would of feared, because the true monster was humanity, who wouldn't hide underneath her bed or her closest, but would instead hide under the cover of the word** **_family_ ** **.**

**She was alone throughout her life, always shaking** **fists** **and stuttered words, her parents hadn't meant to be cruel but that certainly didn't mean they were kind and growing up she had to accept that. She had to push her traumas to the back of her mind and repress them, had to fill in the blanks of her childhood with whispered imagination and just push on** **through** **, ignoring the ruins of her memories.**

**Because, that was life, the way the cards had been dealt and there was nothing she could do about it. Arabella had been born extraordinary, and Eris had just been born ordinary** **and that was the end of it, she was cursed** **to** **live a** **lonely** **life, with no one but herself to count on and trust, and she'd long since been forced to accept it. She was nothing...and that's what she was always going to be.**

**...At least** **...** **that's** **what** **everyone had thought.**

**○**  
**☆**  
**○**

_**"** _ **_ THE CHILD WHO IS NOT EMBRACED BY THE VILLAGE WILL BURN IT DOWN TO FEEL ITS WARMTH."  _ **


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Cash or credit?"

**Lying in her bed, amongst the sweaty sheets the colour of a dark moss surrounding her,** **Eris Greene gasped herself awake to the sound of her alarm blaring loudly on the shelf next to her, ringing inside her ears grating and unpleasant but somehow, almost** ** _grounding_** **.** After a moment, her shaking arm shot out from her cocoon to silence it, alert eyes shooting from place to place, as if expecting to see the monster that haunted her dreams every night to be standing there before her bed with his signature grin and fumbling hands. 

"This is what all cousins do. But its gotta' be our little secret." 

She shuddered to herself as she finally sat up, blanket shrugging off of her shaking body to show her drenched tank top, her bare shoulders covered in old cigarette scars that had never _truly_ went away as a chill creeping up her spine and her eyes clenched shut in frustration, trying to push the desperate recurring memories to the back of her mind like she always did. Yes, it wasn't healthy, even she knew that, but it was the only thing that had kept her going all these years, her own _ignorance_ to protect her own _sanity._

Eris sat like that for a few minutes, pressing her hands up to cup her inflamed cheeks and pushing down the sob that wanted to escape her convulsioning throat. It was just a bad dream. Just a bad, terrible and awful _dream_ , she thought to herself, waiting until her pounding heart slowed from where is hammered against her ribcage and then began to shuffle around on her bed, about to move and begin her morning routine, ignoring her traumas once more before letting out a loud curse as she felt something sharp poking into the skin of her foot. 

"Shit!" 

The young woman quickly pulled her feet back to her chest and cupping her wounded one, feeling the warm blood begin to blossom between her fingers as her face twisted in a pained grimace. She cursed once again, and then looked down at her bed see her attacker only to find actual glass shards that were scattered across her twisted bed, no doubt ripping her sheets and cutting the bottom of her heel with their vicious corners. 

Eris scowled to herself and then she slowly glanced upwards in contempt, having a sneaking suspicion of what caused it and sure enough, the lightbulb hanging above her bed was _smashed_ to pieces. She really had to stop buying those cheap bulbs, for some odd reason, they always seemed to burst. This one had _barely_ been a day old. 

"Great start to the morning." She mumbled with a frown, maneuvering herself around the glass and carefully placing her feet onto the floor, wincing at the sharp pain, but finding the small mercy of having a dark carpet to finally come in useful as she waddled her way into the bathroom, slapping her hand against the tiles to turn on the light and hissing when the harsh light attacked her eyes, practically blinding her for a few moments as she got her bearings and from there, she went through her daily routine.

Brush her teeth, cry for ten minutes in the shower as the boiling hot water washed over the scars of her back, get out of the shower, slap some moisturizer onto her _uncomfortably_ dry skin, get changed into some (hopefully) clean clothes, try and sort out the bird-nest she called a hair but find herself unable to even get a _brush_ through it, so giving up all together and throwing it into a truly, _disastrous_ messy ponytail and storming down the stairs in frustration from the hell hole she called a life and finally, plop her ass onto her kitchen table with a bowl of cereal in front of her. 

"Yeah, I'm really living the high life here." She scoffed, stuffing the spoon into her mouth and losing herself in the sugary goodness of corn flakes as she read off the back of the box boredly, until her citys name being called out from the tv tore her attention away from her...excitable morning, as she snapped her head over to look at the news anchor standing in front of what could only be described as pure _destruction._

"New York was hit with a freak storm last night that wreaked havoc throughout the streets, tearing apart homes and families and killing fifteen people. No one knows where it came from, but, luckily, we had some of our friendly superheroes on hand..." The news anchor stated, and then the clip cut to shaky videos of the night before where, sure enough Eris's sister Arabella was moving citizens to safety in the roaring winds, moving cars out of the way and picking up crying children with ease as she ushered them away.

Eris only watched it for a moment before she switched the channel with a sigh, appetite long forgotten as she grabbed the bowl and tossed it in the sink, falling the guilty swell of resentment build up inside of her like it usually did whenever she head about her sisters heroics. 

It's not that she wasn't proud of her sister, because she truly was. But after having your whole life shaped and reformed around _said_ sister, there was bound to be some form of hidden anger that constantly boiled under the surface. All throughout her life, Arabella was everything she wasn't and she was constantly reminded of the fact, boys and girls alike would pretend to like her to get closer to her sister, she'd used to be harassed on the street for any sort of comment about how it felt to be the lesser known sibling and constantly having her achievements, no matter how small, compared to the greatness that was Arabella just set her teeth on edge. 

She had actually once tried to write a book about her experiences of being the 'lesser known sibling', but, as it turns out, writing just wasn't for her, another thing added to the long list of things that she _couldn't_ do and she'd been forced to give it up, because there was certain things she couldn't speak about, things her family wouldn't _allow_ her to speak about lest she ruin their reputation, so she had no choice to do anything other than sit on the sidelines and read whatever stunt her sister had performed that had the press salivating over her like starving animals. 

_**Ding** _ **!**

She was suddenly brought out of her less than fond thoughts by her phone-timer going off, ringing through the quiet of her small apartment and she startled at the noise, eyes blown wide and heart hammering for the second time that morning before a sigh slipped through her panting lips as she stood up and rummaged through her bag, fingers wrapping around clattering bottle that she shook with a grunt.

It was time to take her medication...like she did... at the same time every day...every week...every month.. every year from the moment she'd turned six...Fucking hell her life really _was_ boring.   
_________________________________________________

_**Holy shit.**_ Walking through the streets, Eris could see just how much _destruction_ had been wreaked throughout the city, overturned cars, fallen over street lamps, shattered windows, battered doors and crumbling roofs greeting her as she hurried along, noticing that the further she went from her home, the less the damage was. That was strange she thought to herself, and what was stranger was the fact that she'd seemingly slept through it.

However, she didn't allow herself much time to think about it because just as she walked around the corner, she felt her eyes widen and the keys held in her shaking hand drop to the floor, because standing just outside of her flower shop, which she was relieved to say looked perfectly untouched from the storm, was her sister, nervously peering in through the glass and looking like she hadn't slept at all, but, with what had happened last night, Eris was sure that she hadn't.

"Arabella?" She called out carefully after bending down to pick up her keys and deliberately ignoring the tremble in her fingers as she did so, watching as the woman's curly head of _perfect_ hair as it swung round to meet her, her bright eyes going wide with shock as she recognised her sister.

"Eris? Oh my god, what are you doing here?" Arabella asked in disbelief, squinting her eyes to make sure it was who she thought it was as she heard the raspy voice, moving as if to walk towards her but thinking better of it, instead actually stepping back subconsciously as she watched her younger sister walk towards her, dark brows furrowed in a confused frown as she jingled the keys in her hand and gestured towards the door awkwardly.

"I, uh, I work here?"

Arabella didn't even try to hide her shocked look as she blinked down at her, Eris barely brushing the bottom of her nose as she came to a stop beside her and rammed the keys into the lock, either ignoring or not seeing Arabella move as if to go in for a hug but playing it off when she seen that her younger sister hadn't even glanced at her. "Oh! I didn't even realise, it's just, your store had such good reviews I was hoping I could...well, you know my wedding is coming up soon."

"Ah, you want to see if we live up to our reputation."

"I guess so, so do you think I could-"

"Yeah, of course, weddings are when we make our killings really." Eris chuckled, pulling the key out and trying the next one because for some odd reason, whatever entity resided over them had decided her childhood hadn't been punishing enough and was trying to prolong this terrible and awkward experience as much as it could. The young woman hesitated for a moment, before looking over her shoulder to tilt her head towards her sister. "I uh, I seen you on the news this morning."

"Oh that? That was nothing." She waved a nonchalant hand though the air, but Eris had noticed the way her eyes had lit up with happiness and had to physically fight down the resentment that swelled inside her and focus on the pride she felt, no matter how hard it was because at the end of the day, it wasn't Arabella's fault that she'd been born extraordinary.

"Yeah well to those people it was everything." Was all Eris replied, before finally unlocking the door with a relief filled sigh, hearing the gentle bell that rang out after the door hit it softly and allowing her sister to walk in first, smiling up at her awkwardly.

It was silent for a long, but few tense minutes, time moving frustratingly slow as Arabella walked around the shop and Eris send a quick text to her boss after hanging her handbag up on the rack, assuring him that nothing had thankfully been damaged and that he could continue to enjoy his holiday with his husband stress free because she had _everything_ handled here, until a gasp broke through the air, and Eris lifted her head in time just to see her sister rush towards one of her favourite bouquets, touching the rose petals gently in awe. "Oh my god, these are beautiful."

"Thankyou." Eris lifted the corner of her lips in a barely-there grin subconsciously, cheeks flushing at the rare compliment, not matter how small it was, as Arabella spun around to look at her with awed eyes."Im uh, the one who arranges them, my boss is the one who grows them but he asked me to come in today and well, make sure everything was still standing."

"Oh, so you're not supposed to be working today?" She asked with a small frown, looking back towards the door to see the closed sign still firmly planted on the door and wondering why she'd been let in if that was the case.

"Not really, but I'm happy to help, it's not every day your sister gets engaged, right?" Eris chuckled wittily, rearranging a certain bouquet to keep her hands busy lest they start shaking with nerves, her anxiety rising and a certain uncomfortable but familiar pressure pressing down on her chest with every uncomfortable silence and hesitant smile, moving around to pull her thick jacket from her body, knowing it wasn't helping with the whole sweating issue and throwing it over the back of her chair quietly.

"Hopefully not. At least I don't plan on it anyway." Arabella laughed, still hovering by the certain bouquet of red, pink and black roses, looking at them with a certain gleam in her bright eyes that told Eris everything her older sister was going to ask without her even having to open her mouth, but of course she did anyway. "So, can I book you as my florist? I mean, I kinda have my heart set on these if you couldn't tell."

"Oh, yeah, yeah, of course."

"Todd...he's good for me, y'know? He doesn't care that I'm a superhero or that I'm a Greene, he just loves me for me, for who I am, it's really nice." Arabella said, looking at her from under her lashes as she continued to fiddle with the strap of her purse while chewing her bottom lip, and Eris couldn't for the life of her figure out _why_ she was telling her this. It's not like she wanted her approval or something...right?

"I bet. I'm happy for you." She replied instead of voicing her question, grabbing the booking book from the side table and flickering through it to find the date, which she thankfully already knew considering it had been plastered over every news station, radio, newspaper and talk show about the great superhero Atlas finally settling down an marry a mere mortal. Get it? Because she was nicknamed after a greek myth? Like she already hadn't taken _enough_ from her.

"Not happy enough to come to the wedding?" A voice suddenly shook Eris from her thoughts as she quickly turned to look at her sister in confusion, the question finally registering in her head after a few moments of tense silence but that only just added on to her already baffled mind as she twisted her face. " _What_?"

Arabella thinned her lips awkwardly, idly twirling the diamond ring around her finger as she struggled to force the words out, eyes flickering from space to space but never meeting her eyes as she stammered out a slow reply. "Well, It's just- I, uh, I haven't got your reservation? Or a response whatsoever really?"

Eris blinked, then blinked again, then once more as she stared at her sister like she'd grown a second head. "That's probably because I haven't been given an invitation?"

"What? Yes you have I asked mom to give it to you months ago-"

"Well there's your problem, mom doesn't even know she has another daughter." Eris chuckled humourlessly as it finally clicked into place, turning her back so she could walk over to the counter without her sister seeing the disgusted look on her face. Of course mom didn't want her to come to the wedding, because why would anyone want their greatest embarrassment anywhere near them on such a wonderful day. What a **_joke_** _._

"That's not true, she's just, she's just been really busy lately, it must of slipped her mind." Arabella tried to defend their mother like she _always_ did because why on earth would her perfect mother who couldn't do any wrong make a simple mistake that _hadn't_ been calculated and thought through first? Rebekah Greene was one of the smartest women on earth, she'd never made a mistake in her life _except_ for her second offspring and _boy_ , did everyone know it.

"Y'know that doesn't _really_ add up to the other twenty three years of being neglected but alright, whatever you say. Cash or card to make your reservation, please." Eris smiled a nasty smile that didn't reach her watery eyes, biting down harshly onto her tongue to stop herself from lashing out in frustration. She really shouldn't of been suprised, really she shouldn't and yet here she was with a pain in her chest that felt like she'd been hit by a _car_.

"Eris I-"

" _ **Cash**_ or card?" She asked firmly, finally lifting her eyes to meet her sisters dangerously, and whatever Arabella saw reflecting in those dark orbs, made her stop her excuses in her tracks, knowing that they, and most importantly _she_ wasn't welcome anymore.

"...card please." The rest of the transaction was silent, the only was coming from the occasional passerby outside, the honking of horns or the wind that had seemingly picked up out of nowhere, and the moment everything was done, Eris turned her back to start fiddling with something on the back shelf, pointedly avoiding looking at her sister to tell her the conversation was **over.**

Arabella had only hesitated for a minute, hand hovering above the space as if to grab her little sisters shoulder but, after some deliberation thinking better of it, and slowly turn around in a dejected manner to walk through the shop, and it was when she got to the entrance did she finally turn around to look at Eris, fingers curled around the handle and door hanging halfway open. "I really hope you can make it to the wedding, and not _just_ as my florist."

And then Eris was swallowed up in silence once more as the bell rung, assuring her that she'd left and that she was completely alone...just like she _always_ was.

For four hours she stayed there, not really needing too but desperate to keep herself busy instead of going home to nothing but an empty apartment where she'd sit on the couch, eating cereal in her pyjamas and watching Friends re-runs until _stupid_ o'clock in the morning only to do the exact same thing the next day. However, she eventually forced herself to leave when the sky grew dark outside, bathing the street in its ominous shadows, yanking her coat back on and grabbing her handbag full of her pills as she strolled out.

But just as she was about to lock the door behind her, a rather strong gust of cold wind nipped at her long fingers, causing them to tumble out of her hands and a curse to slip through her thinned lips causing her to sigh in frustration, glaring up into the sky in exasperation before she then bent down and picked them up, eyeing them angrily as she flicked through them to find the right one.

Eris breathed a quick sigh of relief when she finally found it, the wind around her blowing harder and stronger to the point she worried she'd be caught in the storm this time, but it wasn't until she lifted her face and caught sight of the reflection in the mirror that she realised that was the least of her worries as a _**grinning**_ man stared back at her from over her shoulder, and she didn't get the chance to so much as _scream_ as he pluged a thich syringe into the skin of her neck painfully and she was almost instantly met with the **_terrifying_** numbness of drowsiness hitting her full force, trying to fight every instinct in her body that told her to go to sleep but failing.

The last thing Eris saw before it all went black, was her handbag falling onto the floor and her _pills_ tumbling out of it. 


End file.
